Kenya closes Tokyo embassy, citizens advised to leave

An official in a full radiation protection suit scans an evacuated mother and child to check radiation levels in Koriyama city in Fukushima prefecture, about 60km west from the crisis-hit Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) Fukushima Nuclear plant, on March 16, 2011. AFP | AFRICA REVIEW

The Kenya mission in Tokyo has closed temporarily and Kenyans have been advised to consider leaving Japan due to high radiation levels.

A statement said those who wished to remain in the country, should however, "strictly observe the advice of the authorities as pertains to the Fukushima area, including the set evacuation zones".

They were also urged to avoid all travel to North Eastern Japan and Tokyo and to relocate as far away as possible from those areas and notify the embassy of their new locations.

"Due to the greater damage and potential fall out from the reactor, the mission has embarked on immediate evacuation of Mission staff plus their families from Japan," said the statement released by Kenya's Foreign Affairs ministry Friday.

Alarm over Japan’s nuclear crisis grew as army helicopters water-bombed an overheating power plant and foreign governments urged citizens to leave Tokyo.

The helicopter operation at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant on the Pacific coast, some 250km northeast of Tokyo, aims to keep the fuel rods inside reactors and containment pools submerged under water.

The Japanese Government has told people living up to 10km beyond a 20km exclusion zone around the plant to stay indoors. More than 200,000 people have already been evacuated from the zone.